Mechanical alloying and properties of immiscible Cu-20 wt.% Mo alloy

Abstract

In the present article, an attempt has been made to synthesize binary Cu-20 wt.% Mo immiscible alloy by mechanical alloying of pure elemental Cu and Mo powders. The aforesaid alloy was prepared by commercial planetary ball mill (PBM) and indigenous dual drive planetary ball mill (DDPBM). Both the milling techniques resulted in homogenous distribution of fine and hard Mo particles in soft copper matrix. The crystallite size of the alloy milled in DDPBM exhibited a minimum value of 12 nm after 40 h of milling which was confirmed using XRD and TEM. Further, the mechanically alloyed powders were cold pressed and sintered at different temperatures between 900 and 1050 degrees C for 1 h. The sintered Cu-20wt.% Mo alloy showed a good combination of coefficient of thermal expansion, electrical conductivity and hardness in spite of having a density 93%. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.